Character is the result of two things, mental attitude, and the way we spend our time. It is what we think and what we do that make us what we are.
So many players are in search of the secret to playing the golf game. Ready to try anything, you search for the next great tip or swing thought. If it works for a while, and it sometimes does, you feel that you have it. You hit some good golf shots and the magic tip is the greatest thing in the world. How long will it last? Usually, not long at all. You seem to fade back to your old self.
Then you go searching for the next latest fad or advice from a swing guru. But, in reality, nothing has changed at all. You still have the same golf game.
In this day and age, we are so overloaded with information; work, home, friends, family, trying to succeed, that it's hard to find a way to establish any kind of peace within your mind. When playing golf, do you ever carry on conversations with yourself? I know I have! " Way to go stupid, why did you hit it in the lake" or, "Is this enough club?". How about trying to keep your left arm straight or keeping your head still? Your mind is so full of noise that the body can't respond like it can.
Why do we suffer in life? Because in the scheme of nature we are being forced forward in evolution and we lack the spiritual illumination that alone can light the way and enable us to move safely among the obstacles that lie before us. Usually we do not even see or suspect the presence of trouble until it suddenly leaps upon us like a concealed tiger. One day our family circle is complete and happy. A week later death has come and gone and joy is replaced with agony. Today we have a friend. Tomorrow he will be an enemy and we do not know why. A little while ago we had wealth and all material luxuries. There was a sudden change and now we have only poverty and misery and yet we seek in vain for a reason why this should be. There was a time when we had health and strength; but they have both departed and no trace of a reason appears. Aside from these greater tragedies of life innumerable things of lesser consequence continually bring to us little miseries and minor heartaches. We most earnestly desire to avoid them but we never see them until they strike us, until in the darkness of our ignorance we blunder upon them. The thing we lack is the spiritual illumination that will enable us to look far and wide, finding the hidden causes of human suffering and revealing the method by which they may be avoided; and if we can but reach illumination the evolutionary journey can be made both comfortably and swiftly. It is as though we must pass through a long, dark room filled with furniture promiscuously scattered about. In the darkness our progress would be slow and painful and our bruises many. But if we could press a button that would turn on the electric light we could then make the same journey quickly and with perfect safety and comfort.
